Day for Night by Frederick Reiken

How we all long for stories like this.

Frederick Reiken’s seductive and satisfying third novel, Day for Night, is one of those books that reminds you that fiction has a power that is, at its forward edges, impossible to equal.

This is a wonderful and an impressively accomplished book. It is powerful, memorable, and seductive.

Deceptively direct and readable, Day for Night reminds us, with studied and masterful obliquity, of the interconnectedness of all things, and of the mysticism of everyday life.

It opens conventionally enough then bends at an angle. By the time you realize that your expectations might have been premature you are immersed, and there is no going back.

The characters in this remarkable novel are elegantly and masterfully realized. A more varied and disparate cast would be difficult to assemble. There’s a cop and a soldier, a teenager and a 94-year-old in assisted living: there’s a physician and a rock guitarist.

There’s a woman whose holiday is threatened by an inexplicable act of criminality by her daughter.

The story, perhaps in some ways a familiar one, is our story, and the story of our story. The action ranges across time and geography with seamless ease.

Cruelty there is, and inhumanity, and evil. These are, unfortunately, as unavoidable in the present as they were in the past.

But this, ultimately, is a book of light. You owe it to yourself.